Accepting the Government’s contention that there needs to be an ID system for targeted delivery of welfare benefits, Justice Chandrachud said that the state had failed to show that this entails sacrifices on “individual autonomy, data protection and dignity.”

The majority view of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justices A K Sikri and A M Khanwilkar concluded that “the architecture of Aadhaar as well as the provisions of the Aadhaar Act do not tend to create a surveillance state”.

On January 11, 2010, the regulator granted a fresh import licence to J&J after receiving another undertaking that it would recall the product if found faulty by a regulator in any other country. The ASR implants were globally recalled on August 24, 2010.

In the US, the hip implant class action law suit against the pharma major began in 2011. Two years later, in 2013, the firm agreed to pay an estimated $2.5 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits from affected patients.

The delay in cancelling the licence assumes significance as the firm told the expert committee — appointed by the Union Health Ministry in February 2017 — that it cannot trace as many as 3,600 patients who underwent the surgeries involving the faulty implant.